U.S. President Donald Trump pledged Monday to make efforts to help Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s return to "their loved ones," raising hopes that Washington will become more engaged in the issue.
"We have just heard the very sad stories about (abducted) family members -- daughters, wives, brothers, uncles, fathers," Trump said in a speech after meeting with families of abductees at the Akasaka Palace state guesthouse in Tokyo.
(Pool Photo)
"It's a very, very sad number of stories that we've heard and they were abducted in all cases by North Korea," Trump said, adding he will work closely with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to bring the abductees back to "where they want to be."
More than 10 people, including Sakie Yokota, 81, whose daughter Megumi Yokota was taken to North Korea in 1977 at age 13 and has become the most well-known of the abductees, met with Trump while holding pictures of their family members.
Hitomi Soga, a 58-year-old survivor who was returned to Japan but has not seen her mother since both were abducted in 1978, also took part in the gathering. It is the first time a U.S. president has met a returned abductee.
Trump shook hands and spoke with all participants, a Japanese government official said.
It has been 40 years since Megumi Yokota was snatched by North Korean agents while on her way home from school in a Niigata Prefecture village on the Sea of Japan coast.
During his first general debate address at the U.N. General Assembly in September, Trump condemned North Korea's human rights record, saying, "We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea's spies."
The elder Yokota said at a press conference following the meeting, "I expressed my appreciation to the president for having referred to the abduction issue at the United Nations."
"I would like (the U.S. and Japanese governments) to start taking action immediately," she said.
Sakie Yokota met with then U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House in 2006 and President Barack Obama when he visited Japan in 2014. She has called for the United States to cooperate in resolving the abduction issue as soon as possible due to the families' advancing age.
At the same news conference, Soga thanked Trump for his kind words about her ordeal.
Tokyo officially lists 17 citizens as having been abducted and suspects North Korea's involvement in many more disappearances.
Five of the 17 were repatriated in 2002, but Pyongyang maintains that eight -- including Megumi Yokota -- have died and the other four were never in the country.
